


Afterlife

by justanothersong



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, Cancer, F/M, Guilt, I Don't Even Know, I cried writing this, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Kid Fic, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 14:11:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15909861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: You shook your head. “Jesus Christ, isn’t that just… god.God. It’s not like I need some knight in shining armor riding in to rescue me.” You groaned, eyes closed and one hand reaching to massage your temple. “I don’t know. I’ve made a mess of everything. Maybe I could use a rescue about now.”





	Afterlife

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The seconds crawled. You’d paced your bedroom with the test in hand for a good minute or two before abandoning it on your night table and retreating to the living room to huddle yourself on the couch and try to clear your head. The box had said it needed fifteen minutes for an accurate read; it felt like a lifetime.

Tick.

Tick.

Knock.

You frowned, glancing up at your apartment door. It was a little past eleven on a Saturday night; your single friends were most likely still out, combing the clubs and the bars in hopes of finding that special someone, while the married couples were most likely cuddled together on their couches, watching late night television and continually saying they really ought to go to bed while neither made a move to do so.

So who the hell was knocking on your door?

Knock.

Again it sounded, interrupting the perfectly good panic you had been working up. You decided to ignore it, not wanting to see anyone; you could pretend you were out, pretend you were hitting a club for the night like all the other singles. No one had to know.

“I know you’re home,” a familiar voice sounded from beyond the door. “I could see the lights from downstairs.”

You froze in place, as if moving even the slightest bit would give you away. Hopefully, he’d think you really weren’t there, if you didn’t respond. Maybe he’d think you’d forgotten to turn out a light when you’d left for the night, if you didn’t make a sound.

All of your hopes were dashed when you heard a key turn in the lock. You squeezed your eyes shut and sighed; you’d forgotten he had your spare for emergencies.

You didn’t look up as he closed the door behind him, didn’t watch as he walked towards you, pausing a few feet away. You could hear the rustle of clothing and knew he had stuffed his hands in his pocket, a habitual gesture you knew all too well.

You sighed again. “What are you doing here, Steve?” you asked, finally glancing up at him. 

Just as you had thought, his hands were in his pockets, his lips pressed into a thin line. His brow was furrowed, gaze dark and… what was that? Disapproving?

Ah, well then. He’d heard.

“I tried calling you,” he offered quietly.

“Phone’s off,” you replied. “I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.”

“Why didn’t you answer the door when I knocked?” Steve asked.

You leaned back on the sofa, hands folded in your lap. “Same reason,” you told him, voice bordering on petulant.

Steve huffed an exasperated sigh of your name. “Come on,” he added. “It’s me here.”

You laughed, but it was toneless and cold. “Yeah,” you agreed. “It’s _you_ alright.”

He shook his head and leaned against an armchair, frowning at you. “Is it true?” he asked.

You glanced up at him, arching an eyebrow. “You’ll have to elaborate,” you said, even though you knew full well what he was asking. Leave it to Clint to blab; the man had no filter and no head for privacy.

“You and Tony,” Steve said quietly. It wasn’t a question -- clearly he believed whoever had told him, whoever had chosen to spill your secrets without thought or care whatever drama it might cause. You looked at Steve and saw he was biting his lip, brow still furrowed but something else in his eyes. Hurt? Was that hurt? 

It had been so long, you supposed, since you spent any real time together, that you were forgetting his tells. You used to be able to read him like the back of your hand, even when he tried to slacken his features and deaden the emotions they threatened to give away.

“Me and Tony?” you responded, and snorted. “There’s no _me and Tony_. There’s me, and there’s Tony, and there’s one stupid mistake, and that’s that.”

“A mistake,” Steve repeated. No upwards lilt to his words again, not a question. Well. At least there was something you could agree on.

“A mistake,” you agreed, nodding. His face was killing you -- that expression, god. It would have been easier if he made some snide comment, made some rude remark. Told you how stupid you had been. It’d be so much easier.

You sighed. “Look, I was drunk, okay? So was he. I drank too much and made a stupid mistake, that’s it. That’s all it is, that’s all it was. Not worth making a federal case out of it, Steve.”

“I thought you didn’t do that anymore,” Steve said quietly.

“Make mistakes?” you replied, bordering on glib.

“Drink too much,” Steve prodded. He sat on the edge of the armchair as he spoke, watching you intently. “It’s been a long time.”

You shrugged. “Everybody deserves to have a good time now and again.”

“You don’t drink to have a good time,” Steve told you, as if you didn’t know. “You drink to escape. At least, that’s the way it always was.”

Of course, Steve would know. He had been with you through the worst, he and Peggy. You sighed and reached for a cold cup of coffee on the table, needing something to do with your hands. It was chill and bitter on your tongue.

“Everybody makes mistakes,” you said softly. 

He was right, of course. You didn’t drink anymore, not like that; it was never an addiction for you, but an excuse to make bad choices and screw your life up in ways you could never take back. College had been like that, and a year or two after, but you’d found your way to a better path. They’d helped you with that, Steve and Peg; you barely had a glass of wine now and again, anymore. 

You took another sip of the coffee; the taste had not improved. You glanced back up at Steve, his gaze still focused on you.

“Why are you here, Steve?” you asked, your voice weary.

“You’re going to have a baby,” Steve said, voice soft and gentle, as if you didn’t know. So he really _had_ heard everything. “You and Tony.”

“I don’t know,” you told him honestly, shaking your head. “Maybe. Results aren’t in yet. Further updates as events warrant.” You slugged back the rest of the coffee and replaced the mug on the table before leaning back against the couch cushions and closed your eyes.

You didn’t realize Steve had moved until you felt the couch dip beside you, and warm weight of him settling there and the comfort of his strong arm over your shoulders. Automatically you leaned into him, eyes still closed; you’d wanted this from the moment he stepped in the door, but you could never bring yourself to ask.

“I wish you’d just have come to me,” Steve murmured into your hair, pulling you closer into a tight embrace. You sniffled, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over, and buried your face against his chest. It was so familiar, the scent of him and the heat of his body against yours; it called to mind far too many nights of the two of you clutching each other, crying yourselves to sleep. 

You made yourself pull back, turned from him and stood to walk away, scrubbing away the tears from your cheeks.

“Hey, it was a party,” you pointed out, trying to sound light and airy as you spoke. “Everyone else was pairing off already, I guess I just figured ‘why not?’.”

Steve had frowned as you pulled away and it deepened as you spoke. “Party?” he repeated. “Do you mean the engagement party we threw for Nat and Clint? That’s when you… you and Tony…?”

“Slept together, yeah, Steve, that was the night Tony and I slept together,” you snapped, whirling back on him. “Stop acting like we’re ten and just say it.”

You hadn’t realized Steve had gotten to his feet, hadn’t expected to find him standing so close, eyes dark and expression full of some shade of determination.

“You should have come to me,” he said told you, and you surveyed him with a quizzical expression. He couldn’t be saying…?

“I wish you had just come to me,” Steve repeated, voice softer this time. “If you… if that’s what you needed. You could always have come to me.”

Your eyes narrowed and you snorted. What precisely was he offering? A pity fuck when you were feeling lonely?

“You’d have had to pull Sharon out of your lap first,” you told him, hands on your hips.

It was Steve’s turn to look confused. “Sharon? I don’t…?”

“You know, your little blonde shadow?” you prompted, more than a little meanly. “Follows you around like a lost puppy dog whenever we’re all together. Honestly I’m surprised she’s not here with you now, fluttering her eyelashes at you.”

Steve sighed and shook his head. “Sharon’s a sweet kid but she’s not… She likes to talk. No one in the family ever talks about Peg anymore. It’s how they deal with things, I guess. So she talks to me about her, about them as kids. That’s all.”

You didn’t reply; you couldn’t think of a thing to stay. Your heart had given a painful squeeze when he said her name and you couldn’t breathe for a moment. You just stood there, numb, eyes cast to the floor.

It was Steve who broke the silence.

“Tony is going to ask you to marry him,” he told you. Still so quiet, as though he were softening a blow.

Your head snapped up in surprise. “What?!” you gasped. “Are you kidding me? Oh god, who even told him…? What in the hell…”

“I think it’s Clint who told,” Steve told you, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish expression. “He’s the one who told me. And you know how Tony is… whatever he does, he does whole hog… so to speak.”

You shook your head. “Jesus Christ, isn’t that just… god. _God_. It’s not like I need some knight in shining armor riding in to rescue me.” You groaned, eyes closed and one hand reaching to massage your temple. “I don’t know. I’ve made a mess of everything. Maybe I could use a rescue about now.”

“No,” Steve said suddenly, voice so deep and commanding that you opened your eyes in surprise. He was close again, enough slip his arms around your waist and pull you forward suddenly, pressing your body close against his. 

“Marry me,” he breathed out. “Don’t say yes to Tony. Marry me instead. I’ll take care of you, I’ll take care of the both of you, just…”

“Steve!” you whispered, wanton and sharp, and before you could so much as protest, his lips were on yours. Kissing you. _Steve_ was kissing you and you didn’t stop him, no, you were kissing him back, moaning his name between slick presses of his lips.

He lifted you up, right off the ground, strong arms wrapped around you. No one had ever done anything like that to you before -- it was like something straight out of a movie. You wrapped your legs around his waist on pure instinct and he pressed you against the wall, the added support allowing his hands to roam a little, his lips to drift from yours to drop sucking kisses down the side of your neck until he bit at the join of your shoulder. Your head thunked back against the wall and you moaned, the sultry sound of it encouraging Steve in his ministrations. 

Some part of you knew it would be like this. A little rough. A little brutal. Something you had been denying for so long, avoiding for so long, could never come to fruition as any soft and gentle lovemaking. You pushed your fingers through his thick locks of blond hair and _pulled_ ; he all but growled and dragged his teeth against you again, rocking his hips forward and pressing you back so hard and sudden that the framed photos on the wall shook with the force of it.

You’d lived in the same apartment long enough that Steve knew the way to your bedroom, the path well worn from years past, the bathroom door right across from it. You let him take the lead: returning his kisses, encouraging them with your gasps and groans but never initiating or asking for anything. Steve didn’t seem to notice, but the same part of you that had known this would be explosive when it finally happened was certain that he did and understood that you needed it this way.

“God, I want you,” Steve whispered. He had nearly thrown you down onto your bed, pulling away only long enough to pull his shirt over his head and toss it away before crawling in to loom over you. “Just you wait, gonna make you feel real good…”

You broke your self-imposed rule then, reaching up for him, pulling him down to kiss you. You’d felt so cold when he wasn’t there, a shiver running through your body in the mere seconds he’d been away. The distance had been too much, a few feet, a few inches… it may as well have been a mile, for how badly you needed him in that moment. 

 

When you woke, it was still dark; the traffic outside your window was all but nonexistent, the early morning hours on a residential block not completely gone silent but near enough to let you know it wasn’t quite daytime. Steve was curled around you, and you lay still for a long moment, eyes closed against the darkness, just letting yourself feel the warm exhale of his breath against your shoulder. 

Eventually you had to move, forcing yourself to your feet for a late night trip to the bathroom. You moved silently through the room, noting how Steve made a small noise of discontent in his sleep, pulling your pillow to his chest and settling back, but still wearing a frown. It almost made you smile. 

The light in the bathroom seemed harsh and glaring, and when you were washing your hands you could barely see your own reflection in the mirror without squinting. It didn’t take much more than a passing glance to see what you were looking for -- the evidence of Steve’s mouth at your neck and shoulders, bruises already going dark and purple. You reached up and pressed your fingertips to one of them, almost as if you couldn’t believe it was there.

As if you couldn’t believe what you’d done.

As if you couldn’t believe it was all real.

It took a moment for your eyes to adjust back to the darkness of your bedroom and as you padded your way back to bed, you knocked your hip into the night table, sending something small and white clattering to the hardwood floor. You squinted and looked down, realizing with a moment of shock what it was, and picked it up. Sitting gently on the bed, you clicked on the bedside lamp, the pregnancy test held out to the light.

One blue line, not two.

Negative.

You were still staring at it when you felt Steve stir to wakefulness beside you.

“You alright, sweetheart?” he asked. His voice was low and sleep-rough and you felt him moving beside you, sidling up closer to where you sat. You wanted to answer, but you weren’t really sure, and he said your name softly to prod you into speaking.

“I’m not pregnant,” you told him, voice hollow and blunt. You weren’t sure what you should be feeling, so you forced a laugh. “Guess Tony’s off the hook. You too.”

He sighed and you felt him move again, until the warm wonderful heat of him was pressed against you and he was kissing over the lovebites and bruises he had left behind hours earlier. He was gentle this time, so sweet and loving that it made your heart ache.

Steve took the plastic test stick from your hand and placed it on the table, reaching to switch off the light.

“It was never about that,” he told you, hand sliding around and across your belly. “Not for me. You know that, don’t you?” 

Of course you knew. Just as your drunken moment of stupidity weeks before hadn’t been about loneliness or bitterness; it had been an attempt to stop yourself from doing anything worse, to stop yourself from giving in to what you really wanted, from returning the linger gazes that Steve had been sending your way more and more. Sure, there had been some jealous -- seeing Sharon at his side would forever raise your hackles, you were sure of it -- but you were lashing out at yourself, drinking to forget and gain the courage you needed to try and ruin your own life without touching his.

You tilted your head just enough to give him leave and he took it as an invitation, kissing you softly at first and then deeper; you didn’t need him to take the lead any longer and you twistd in his embrace, wanting to feel more of him, the delicious heat of his skin against yours. It was different this time, sweet and gentle an so loving it nearly brought you to tears. 

When you finally fell asleep again, you were held tightly in Steve’s arms; you would stay that way until you woke again.

 

The mid-morning light seemed gaudy and intrusive when you roused to wakefulness again. Steve was still asleep, just as before, but this time he lay on his side facing you, one arm curled beneath a pillow and the laying heavy across you, holding you close. 

He looked so different. You could easily remember him from when you first met, all thin and gawky and still acclimating to a late teen growth spurt that left him taller than he knew what to do with. You had been a motley crew, the three of you: Steve, stumbling over his own flat feet at a frat party he’d barely been invited to; you, drunkenly half-sprawled over a stained futon, giggling as a tipsy Steve had tried to help you to your feet; and, of course, Peggy, beautiful wild-hearted Peggy, her hair a mess and a cut on her cheek from a fight she’d gotten into with a junior girl earlier that night, hands on her hips and grinning at the two of you.

You’d gotten on like a house on fire from the moment you met Peggy, your new roommate for your very first semester of college. Steve had come along a few weeks later, an outspoken Brooklyn boy who had been cowed into uncertain silence from the loss of his best friend, the other boy having gone the way of enlistment after high school rather than enrollment in college. The two had been side by side for so long, Steve barely knew what to do without him -- until he stumbled into Peggy in the cafeteria, knocking the cup of coffee she was considering her lunch to the floor.

“Well then,” she told him, perfect eyebrow arched, pretty smirk on her lips. “I guess you owe me a drink.”

You knew in an instant they had become a packaged deal; you were just lucky they dragged you along for the ride.

In those four all too short years together, you grew to love both Peggy and Steve with all of your heart and soul; she was the sister you’d never had, and he was family too. Your own family, the ones who shared your blood and your name, had never been the affectionate sort; the family home was large and cold and cavernous, so different from the cozy warmth of your dorm room and, later, the two-bedroom apartment you shared with Peggy and Steve. They saved you -- not just in giving you the tight-knit family you craved, but in every way.

You could remember the day it all came to a head, when Peggy found you heaving in the bathroom after a long weekend. There had been blood before -- you’d tasted it, seen it in the bowl -- but never quite so much. And you’d managed to hide it from them before.

It wasn’t that you needed it. You could go all week without a drink just fine. But while Peggy and Steve had settled together in their own happy little bubble, you were still looking. And it seemed every time you tried to eek out some manner of a social life, the anxiety and fear would drop cold and hard in your stomach and you wouldn’t be able to speak. A few drinks would loosen you up enough to talk, a few more to smile and flirt. 

It always seemed to end with you alone on the bathroom floor. This time, though, Peggy was there, smoothing back your hair and dabbing your tears with a warm damp cloth.

“You’ve got to stop this, darling,” she told you, the sweet pet name she tended to use on only her closest friends. “We’ll go to the clinic today and get you looked at, but you have to stop. You can’t carry on this way.”

And you’d listened -- listened to her because it was only by Peggy’s word that you’d have the courage to try, to put away the freedom the booze seemed to afford you. To be better. To be more like her. You’d been incredibly lucky, the blood coming from vessels burst in your sinuses from all the heaving you were doing and not from your stomach or esophagus, but it was enough to frighten you. You stopped drinking and, with Peggy’s help, learned to get past your fears. 

 

Steve opened his eyes, so blue in the morning light, and a slow smile spread over his face. You were certain you knew what he was thinking: he had thought it had all been a dream, just as you had felt upon waking the second time. But where you were nervous, a mixed up jumble of emotions knotting in your throat, he seemed relaxed and… happy.

“Good morning,” he said, voice like gravel. He yawned and arched his back to stretch, leaving you once again to marvel at how changed he was from those early day. 

Skinny, scrawny Steve had found a medication that kept his asthma at bay; then he’d discovered the sprawling campus gymnasium complex. So far as you knew he still ran daily, lifted weights, did all manner of physical things you’d never fathom because your trips to the gym were strictly visits to the pool and the treadmills. Skinny, scrawny Steve was now a man built of strong hard muscle -- muscle that had lifted you off your feet last night as though you were light as a feather, that had held you down against your mattress just to hear you gasp in pleasure.

You almost shivered to think of it.

“Morning,” you replied, giving him a small smile in return, and just because you couldn’t resist it, you leaned down to brush a chaste kiss against his lips. Steve hummed in approval.

“Spend the day with me,” he said as you pulled away, eyes bright and hopeful. “Let me take you out. We’ll run the city like we’re tourists, pretend to get lost and walk home in the rain.”

You don’t think Eve’s apple in the garden of Eden was quite as tempting as that offer.

You shook your head, and you watched that hopeful light in his eyes die. “I have a few things I have to do today,” you demurred.

He nodded. “Okay, I understand,” he agreed, not sounding even a bit like he did at all. You turned and move to stand and you felt his hand on your arm, bringing you to pause. “Do you regret this?” he asked, voice low.

You turned back to him and shook your head again. “I could never,” you told him, and though your smile was small, it was sincere. It seemed satisfy him. “We can meet up tonight, if you want,” you went on. “I just have something I need to take care of.”

 

Everyone told you it was crazy to own a car in New York City. The parking fees, they would tell you. The gas prices, they would insist. There’s a subway station right down the block from your building, they would remind. But at first sign of rain or snow or sweltering summer heat, the first time they need groceries and their service won’t deliver in time, the moment they have an event a few miles off the island… they would always look to you.

You weren’t a native New Yorker and being without a car left you feeling more helpless than you’d have liked, so you paid the ridiculous fees your building charged for parking and more often than not, it came in quite handy. Like today.

You kept a resusable shopping in your trunk with almost everything you needed, through you stopped at a gas station and bought a few large bottles of water to take along. You felt bad immediately as you want to place them beside the bag; it had turned over, contents spilling out, buried beneath and old blanket, an errant pair of sneakers, and a near empty bottle of window washer fluid. 

It had been a long while since you made such a visit, it seemed.

The drive was relatively short and you carried your quarry with you as you walked to see her, no small sense of trepidation making your hands shake and your stomach roil. You sighed when you reached her.

“Hello Peggy,” you said softly. “I’m sorry I haven’t been to visit in so long.” You sighed again, laid out your blanket on the grass, and got to work.

The grass was kept neat and trip but there were weeds surrounding her stone. The stone itself was a marble slab set in the ground; the cemetery wouldn’t allow for a larger monument and though Steve had more than enough money at the time to take her somewhere else, he’d recoiled at the idea of placing Peggy somewhere alone.

“She’ll be with my Ma,” he had told you, voice rough with emotion. “Now neither of’em’ll be on their own. They’ll be together, at least.”

You ran your fingers over the letters carved in the stone as you cleaned off dead leaves and dirt, pouring water from your bottle and scrubbing it all away with the clean rags you had kept in your bag.

 _Margaret Rose Carter-Rogers_ , it read. _Beloved Wife & Dearest Friend_.

When you finished your work, you turned to the stone beside it. Older and much more plain, the soft pink marble slab simply read _Sarah Rogers_ , with the word _Mother_ atop it and a carving of praying hands. You had never known Sarah; she had passed just before Steve had graduated high school. Perhaps that was part of what had drawn the three of you together, each searching for something like family: your own too wrapped up in themselves to care much for their prodigal youngest daughter, Peggy’s far across the Atlantic and disapproving of her choice to come to New York to study, and Steve, utterly alone in the world with his best friend far away in basic training and his mother in the ground.

You rinsed your hands with the remains of the first bottle of water once it was clean and say back on your feet to survey your work.

“There now,” you said with a nod. “That’s better.” Turning back to Peggy’s stone, you felt tears pricking your eyes. 

“Oh, Peg,” you said softly, eyes on the dates carved in her stone. “Has it really been so long?”

Eight years. How could it have been eight years? Peggy had been gone from your life now as long as she had been in it. A year more and that number would eclipse the other, the paltry eight years you had spent with the best friend you’d ever had, your sister in everything but blood and name, would seem to dwindle in the face of a lifetime without her. It was all too much.

You should have known you wouldn’t have Peggy for long. People like that burn so brightly and so fast, they can’t possibly last for long.

She had been sick before you knew her. She’d confided it a year or two after you’d met, late night whispers over a bottle of cheap rum in your dorm room. She’d been afraid -- and imagine that, Peggy, afraid! -- that once Steve knew her secret, he wouldn’t want her anymore.

“I was fourteen,” she explained, words only slurred the slightest bit. “Cramps’d been awful the last few months, never seemed to end, and then the bleeding… just kept coming. Finally convinced my Mum something was wrong after a few weeks…”

“Weeks?!” you’d echoed, eyes wide in horror. “She just let you go on like that, bleeding like that, for weeks?!”

Peggy snorted. “‘It’s a woman’s curse, and a blessing’, she’d say. Never really believed when I told her how bad it hurt, I don’t think. But when I bled through my dress at Sunday service and passed right out, that made her believe it.”

“What was it?” you asked, taking the bottle from her to take a long swig. You were afraid you knew the answer.

“Cancer,” she said bluntly. “Cervical cancer. Took my Aunt Louise when she was nineteen, Mum said, and my Nan at thirty-four. They went in and they carved me all up inside, gave me the radiation and everything. Should’ve seen me, bald as a damn cue ball!”

“Oh, Peggy!” you’d cried, heart breaking for her. 

She gave you a watery smile. “I’m alright, I’m alright,” she reassured you with a wobbly pat on the kneed. The two of you were sitting in the dark, your backs leaned up against your bed in the small cluttered dorm you shared. All of your deepest conversations seemed to find you that way.

“And you think Steve…?” you pressed.

“Can’t have kid, can I?” she told you, and for the first time you heard her sound almost bitter. “I mean, I’ve gotten used to the idea, had enough time to. But Steve… Steve, oh, darling, I love him… I love him from his toes up to his broken nose and down again!”

You had to smile. Steve was always getting into fights, even more as he put on muscle and grew in size. He had a fiery temper and a need to right every wrong he saw, and there were a fair few of them on a college campus. He’d gotten into another tumble with some student group calling itself HYDRA, though as far as you could tell it was just a cover for some neo-Nazi rhetoric, just the week before. He’d come out on top but a cheap shot by one of the bastards, some kid called Rumlow, had broken his nose.

Again.

“You can’t think he’d… he’d…” you rambled, trying to find the right words.

“Leave me?” Peggy filled in. “Might do. It’s not something we’ve even talked about, but… I mean, Christ, we’re not even out of school yet, maybe he’ll meet someone else and…”

You nudged her and smiled. “As if that’d happen,” you told her. “Steve’s only had eyes for you from the moment you met, Peg. He’d never give you up, not for anything.”

It was one of the very few times you ever saw Peggy look frightened, or vulnerable. “You’re sure?” she asked, very much a drunk and worried nineteen year old girl in that moment. She snatched the bottle back from you and took a long swing, emptying it and setting it delicately down on the floor.

You leaned into her and smiled. “Positive,” you assured. 

 

It came back the year you graduated. Peggy dropped out of law school and took a job as a legal clerk; she needed money coming in, with Steve still wrapped up in a six month unpaid internship at an advertising agency. You still had access to your family money then and even as she refused it, you would slip cash to Steve whenever you could.

Groceries for their little apartment, something to keep the lights on and the water hot. Whatever they needed it for. Steve became far too adept at lying to her: they’d won on a lottery ticket, he’d gotten some good tips in his job moonlighting as a barista, found a twenty on the ground in the parking lot. You think she knew -- she must have, when the charity fund at the hospital always managed to cover her treatment and Steve always found enough cash for her prescriptions -- but she never said a word. You preferred it that way, and she knew it.

And she beat it. Of course she did -- she was Peggy Carter, that’s just what she did. She refused to relinquish her job while she was ill, taking the train to work even when the chemo had her thin and hollowed, wearing a bright stylish hat to hide her thinning hair and smiling even when the nausea was so bad you knew she wanted nothing more than to lie down in a cool dark room. They’d cut her open, carved out everything left inside that made her ill and then some, then patched her up whole again. 

The day the doctors had said those magic words -- _cancer free_ \-- Peggy finally agreed to marry Steve. He’d asked her months before but she refused to answer, not until she knew it was gone. They married quickly at city hall, celebrating with hot dogs from a street vendor and of course, you at their sides. 

“Can’t have a wedding without my Maid of Honor, now can I?” Peggy told you with a smile, practically pulling you out the door the morning they decided to do it.

The groom wore jeans and a leather bomber jacket; the bride was in a white sundress and a pair of lipstick red pumps. You didn’t think you’d ever seen two people happier or more in love.

The three years that followed seemed the best of all your lives. Peggy found she loved working as a legal clerk and declined to pursue a law degree any further, securing a good position with the Fury & Coulson firm. Steve was offered a permanent position at the advertising firm where he interned, only to be offered an even better one at its main competitor. The two suddenly had a group of new friends and a new wealthy jet set lifestyle, and you were right there with them..

It took a few tries but you eventually found employment at a high end auction house, working in appraisals to the tune of a six figure salary. You preferred work in the labs and back offices, but your bosses deemed you attractive enough to trot you out at all the exclusive charity events and celebrity collection auctions they hosted. It wasn’t uncommon to find yourself downing one too many glasses of champagne at that sort of thing, but you kept it in check enough not to go completely off the rails.

It helped that Steve and Peggy often came to offer moral support when you were forced to play the role of debutant appraiser. 

You were doing well enough to cut the final ties to your family; Peggy cheerfully toasted you with a glass of orange juice when you told her, and that night you went out to celebrate with the whole crew: Natasha, who worked at your auction house; Clint, who Steve met when he was security at his agency but had since moved on to run his own bodyguard service; Tony, who’d thrown so much work the way of Peggy’s firm that she couldn’t help but get to know him; Wanda, a copywriter at Steve’s firm and her brother Pietro, who worked for Clint… the list went on. The were your crew -- your family. 

Everyday was a whirlwind, from work to meeting up in bars, small get togethers in high rise homes, all the stomping grounds of the young professional in the city, and it seemed it would never end.

 

You didn’t know what to think when Peggy called you early one afternoon and asked you to come over to the apartment she and Steve shared in Manhattan after you finished for the day. It didn’t make much sense; you’d just seen them the night before and were meant to go to an arthouse film with Peg the day after. But something in the lilt of her voice told you that it was important and of course you agreed. Steve seemed just as puzzled when you arrived, and she had you both sit down in the living room.

“Peggy, you’re scaring me,” you said, forcing a chuckle. “What’s going on?”

Steve nodded; he seemed to share your anxiety over the sudden meeting. “C’mon Peg,” he agreed. “Don’t leave us in suspense.”

She gave you a weak smile, and that was perhaps most frightening of all. Peggy’s smiles were sweet or sultry, laughing or fierce. She was vibrant, a force of life all her own; her wan face, the jittery smile, the way she clasped her hands together in her lap… You were terrified.

“I went to see Dr. Cho a few days ago,” she began quietly.

Steve sat up straighter in his seat. “What? When?” he asked sharply. Dr. Cho was Peggy’s oncologist, an ingenue when Peggy began treatment after college. Your eyes wide, you only stared, unable to speak.

“Monday,” Peggy explained. “I had an appointment set for the morning and it ended up lasting the day. I didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to worry you if it was nothing, but…” She trailed off, seemingly unable to continue.

“But?” you prompted, your own voice trembling.

“I hadn’t been feeling well,” she finally said. Her voice was shaking and there were tears in her eyes. “I suppose I knew. You get to understand it, get to feel it…” She closed her eyes, a few stray tears breaking loose. Steve reached out and took her hands in his.

“Peggy, please…” he whispered. He must have already knows. You already knew yourself, and wished just as much it wasn’t true.

Peggy gave a watery smile. “It’s no use in prolonging things, I suppose,” she said with a dark chuckle. “It’s back. It’s back, and it’s everywhere. Liver, pancreas, bones… those headaches I’ve had, Dr. Cho thinks it may even have reached my brain. All over. It’s all over.”

Steve swore and sunk to his knees on the carpet, pulling her out of the armchair where she sat and into his arms.

“Okay,” you said slowly. “Okay… We’ll figure it all out Peg, I can get my work schedule changed to work around your chemo and I can drive you to treatment. Steve, your insurance is good, isn’t it? It’ll cover most of it and we can…”

Peggy reached out one hand, shaking her head as she wrapped it around your wrist. “No, darling, not this time,” she told you, crying even as she smiled and shook her head. “I’m all done, you see. No more chemo. No more fighting.”

Steve gasped. “What?! Peg, no…!”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “It’s no use, love. Even Dr. Cho said so. All it would do is prolong the end and I don’t want that. I don’t want to die sick and thin and bald. I’m going to give notice at work and we’ll have a wonderful few months, all of us, together.”

Steve tried to protest, you both did, but it was clear she had made up her mind already.

“No tears now,” she told you, wiping her own away. She was still smiling, through all of it; but that was Peggy all over. “We’ve only so much time left and I won’t waste it on tears. Let’s make the most of it, shall we?”

She quit her job the very next day, and Steve took a leave of absence from work. Peggy wanted to see as much of the world as she could with the time she had left, and their first stop was to see Peggy’s family in London and break the news in person. When they protested her decision to forego treatment vehemently and refused to put the issue to bed at her request, she cut the visit short; there was still so much more to do and to see, it wasn’t worth the time to argue.

Steve took her everywhere she asked and then some: Rome and Venice, Paris and Madrid, Tokyo and Beijing, anywhere the wind would take them. It the end, though, it was home that Peggy wanted most, and they returned to New York just as her strength was beginning to fade. Once they were home, you took every last hour off from work that you could manage, blowing through your vacation time and sick days, and even a few weeks unpaid leave. As Peggy got sicker, she needed you more, and there was no way you could deny her that support.

“You’ll look after him for me, won’t you?” she asked one cloudy day as you sat at her bedside. The television was playing a soap opera across the room but she had muted the sound ages ago; you had been chatting, sitting in the armchair pulled up to the hospital bed that Steve had arranged for their apartment, trying to convince her to eat a little something. You’d had to push Steve himself out the door to catch a nap; you were certain he’d been awake for at least 36 hours.

You smiled gently. “Of course, Peg. I’ll look after the both of you -- that’s what friends do, isn’t it?”

She chuckled softly and reached a chill hand to take one of yours. You hated how cold she felt; no matter how many blankets you piled around her, she always felt so cold.

“When I’m gone, darling,” she told you, as though it should have been the most obvious thing in the world. “Steve will need you. He doesn’t do well alone, remember?”

“Peggy,” you began, trying to tell her she was fretting over nothing, that she still had so much time left, even as you choked back tears.

“Hush now,” she said in gentle reprimand. “This is important. We both know I’ve not got long left and I need to know he’ll be alright. That you’ll both be alright. Promise me, please. Promise me you’ll look after him for me. That you’ll take care of each other.”

“I promise,” you agreed, tears falling freely by then. “I promise, Peggy.”

 

It was a beautiful cool September day when Peggy left you. You’d had a feeling that morning that it would end soon; she seemed so calm, so much at peace. The days prior had been bad, Peggy falling fitfully in and out of consciousness, sometimes unable to forms real words when she tried to speak. But that morning she was so clear-headed; it frightened you to see it.

“Such a lovely day,” she said, voice faint. “I’ve always loved September. That’s when I found you -- when I found the both of you. My love, and my sister.”

“How are you feeling today, Peg?” Steve asked, perched at her bedside. He seemed cheered to see her so alert; you realized he didn’t understand what was happening.

“Oh there you are, Steve,” she murmured, as though she hadn’t realized he was there. She reached with a small hand and caressed his stubbly cheek. “There you are, my love. I’m good… I’m… everything’s so soft…”

He frowned, thinking she was drifting. “Peg?” he asked cautiously.

She smiled. “No more fighting now, dear. No more bloody noses, you hear? You have to keep your promises, the both of you.”

“Of course, Peggy,” you told her. You were seated at the other side of her bed; you had been lingering in the door, not wanting to break into what little private time she and Steve had left, but you knew she was close to letting go and you had to be there for her. “Anything you need, Peg, me and Steve’ll take care of it for you.”

“That’s right, beautiful,” Steve agreed with a laugh.

Peggy gave a tiny chortle. “Please, love. I know I must look a fright.”

“You’re always beautiful to me,” Steve reminded her. “My best gal, remember?”

Peggy smiled. “So lovely,” she whispered, eyes drifting to the window again. “I did always love September.” She closed her eyes and it took a moment for you to realize it: she was gone.

“Peg?” Steve asked slowly, reaching to grasp her hand. She didn’t respond, a mask of calm having fallen over her features. It was almost serene. “Peggy?” he repeated, voice arching up an octave in alarm. 

“Steve…” you tried to interrupt, but he shook his head.

“No.. no, please, not yet Peggy, not yet!” Steve whispered in a mixture of horror and pain. “No, please, I’m not ready, I’m not ready… I can’t do this…”

He collapsed over her, body wracked with sobs in a manner so visceral and full of pain that it would have drawn you to tears even if you hadn’t known what he was going through. Your lips trembled and your hands shook as you held in your own cries, tears readily streaming down your face, and you reached out to soothe him, running fingers through his hair and letting him get it all out.

 

That was the last time you saw Steve cry until well after the funeral. He remained silent and stoic, eyes rimmed red but never shedding a tear, not at the wake or the funeral service or even watching them lower the casket into the ground. You heard Peggy’s relatives calling him cold or even uncaring, but you knew better.

He was numb. The largest part of him inside was down in that coffin with Peggy; you knew that with all your heart because yours was there too. He disappeared after he dropped the last rose into the hole in the ground and never went to the small funeral luncheon you had helped arrange. You wouldn’t see him again until late that night, when he turned up at your door.

“Please,” he told you, that blank mask he wore beginning to crack and fall to pieces. “Please, I can’t go back there, not tonight, I can’t.” 

You understood completely: it would be months before you could step foot into the apartment where Peggy had breathed her last, and even then it was just to help him close it up while he decided what to do with it. You let him inside and you spent the night, and many more after it, wrapped around each other on your bed, sobbing yourselves to sleep.

 

The pain at losing Peggy was the most intense you’d ever felt. It was like a hollowness inside, a place that had once been full of warmth and vitality now cold as the arctic and just as barren. Worst were the moments where you’d just forget: you’d see something, read something, spot a pretty dress or a lovely flower that you knew she’d appreciate, and as you made the mental note to tell her the next time you saw her, the realization would hit and you’d have to live the loss all over again.

Steve seemed to sleepwalk through his life. He’d gone back to work but remained quiet and drawn. He took a small apartment in Brooklyn, increasing his commute threefold but he had confided in you that the familiarity of it, the neighborhood he had grown up in, was helping him cope.

“I have to learn how to live without her again,” Steve had told you over a late night phone call. “Being back here makes me remember what that felt like.”

You remained close, never going back on your promise to Peggy. You kept Steve going, made sure he was taking care of himself, tried to keep him from drowning in old memories. Somehow, the time seemed to pass: first a month without her, then two, and before you knew a year, and another. You still saw Steve just as often but it wasn’t out of obligation or concern that he would be backsliding, it was simply out of the enjoyment of your friendship.

And then one day, a little more than a year ago, one of your coworkers gave you a knowing look in the bathroom mirror as you refreshed your lipstick before heading out for the evening. Darcy was several years your junior but she was very friendly; she worked in restoration and, from what you heard heard, kept the staff on their toes more often than not.

“Ooh, somebody’s got a hot date tonight!” she cooed in a sing-song voice, her mess of dark curls and bright smile grinning back at you in the mirror.

You scoffed, even as you smiled. Darcy had a grin that was downright infectious.

“I don’t really date,” you admitted with a shrug. You had no lack of willing suitors but your heart just wasn’t in it. You’d nearly married someone the year prior, gotten down to three weeks before the set date before you called it off.

You’d had no end of uncertainty about it for weeks after, turning to Steve for advise and comfort.

“Maybe I was wrong,” you’d said. “Maybe I should have married Ben.”

“Why did you decide to call it off?” Steve had asked, another one of those late phone calls on a Friday night when you were alone with your thoughts.

“The toast,” you blurted. You had never told him; you’d been embarrassed, because it had seemed so silly in the aftermath. “I wanted a dry reception but Ben wanted a champagne toast, he said it wa tradition in his family… Oh, but Steve, you know how I am, you know how I’d feel, all decked out and on display like that, I didn’t want the temptation that I might…”

“You made the right choice,” Steve told you firmly. “He knows about your situation with drinking. If he loved you as much as he said he did, then he wouldn’t have argued. You were going to be his wife -- _his chosen family_ \-- what you needed should have outweighed what his family wanted. Jesus, what an ass. I’m so glad you didn’t marry that guy.”

You never questioned your decision after that, and you’d decided to take some time off from the dating scene, but Darcy clearly hadn’t bought it.

“All dolled up, fixin’ up your hair and your makeup, and that perfume is to die for,” she told you knowingly, hands on her hips. “I see you everyday and this isn’t your workday look -- you’re dressed to impressed. Who’s the lucky fella?”

You were going to tell her she was wrong but your reflection caught your eye and you were so suddenly startled that you dropped the tube of lipstick in your hand right into the sink.

The red dress, cut just barely high enough at the bust and low enough at the thigh to be workplace appropriate. The hair you had spent all morning styling -- like you only did when you were meeting Steve after work. The eyeliner you’d done and redone three times just before putting on your lipstick. The perfume, a bottle of Nina by Nina Ricci that you loved but used sparingly: Steve had complimented you on it once and you had been using it more liberally as of late.

You gaped at your reflection. You were going for an early dinner with Steve, just to catch up, as work had him tied up much of the time lately and you’d missed your afternoon coffee breaks -- his company’s building was just down the block from the auction house and you’d often meet, three or four times a week. And you were dressing like it was a _date_.

Remembering the way you’d obsessed over just the right dress for Natasha’s birthday some weeks before, you realized that it really wasn’t the first time.

 

It spiralled from there. You began pulling away, embarrassed and ashamed. Seeing your own behavior brought to your attention that way had made you realize that you weren’t just dressing the part; the feelings that welled up inside when you thought about Steve were far from platonic. You had fallen in love with him -- fallen in love with Peggy’s Steve!

Not that he was really her Steve anymore, the traitorous part of your brain insisted. He had changed greatly in the years since her death. The fiery, angry part of him that had been ready to take on the world and fight off anyone who would interfere had quieted. He still wanted to right every wrong that he saw, but he did it with more finesse, brains over brawn and diplomacy where before he might have just raised his fists.

He read more, talked less. Put more thought and concern behind his actions, but was still as loving and caring as he had ever been. Still Steve, just… different.

You don’t think you ever could have loved him back then, when he was still Peggy’s Steve, all brash troublemaker with little thought for the consequence. The man he had become, that was the one you had fallen for.

Not that you were really the same either. No more drinking. No more weekend party girl. You had a calmness about you, your own sense of quiet. You had started to think that maybe New York wasn’t the place for you anymore, too loud and bright. Just too much.

But you kept up appearances, pretended that it was all the same. Until in the haze of jealousy you’d taken up a drink and then took Tony up on his drunken offer, only to spoil everything even further by taking Steve to your bed just weeks later.

What would Peggy think of you now?

 

“I didn’t mean to,” you whispered, running your fingers over the words carved into her stone. _Beloved Wife & Dearest Friend_. “I didn’t mean to love him, Peggy, I swear to god I didn’t.”

Your face crumpled as a sob shook loose and you covered your mouth with your free hand to try and stifle the sound, the other still flat upon the stone. It seemed almost warm under your palm, and it made the tears fall even harder.

“Please don’t hate me,” you managed. “Please don’t hate me, Peggy, I didn’t mean it, I swear I didn’t… I’d never have loved him if you were here, never, never, I swear I’d never… please, please don’t hate me!”

He startled you with a hand on your shoulder. “I don’t think she’d ever have been able to hate you,” Steve said, giving you a soft smile when you glanced up at him. “Would you, Peg?” he asked, turning his gaze back to her stone. “You’d never hate either of us. You told me to look after her… I bet you told her the same about me.”

You nodded, eyes widened in surprise. 

Steve carried two small plants in a cardboard carrier with his free hand, a little battered and a few leaves and petals gone missing, no doubt from the trip on the subway. The bright marigolds were for his mother, the yellow tea roses no doubt for Peggy.

“I guess we had the same idea today,” he told you, and settled himself beside you. He took the small spade out of your bag and began working, putting a tiny little hole in the ground just above his mother’s stone, just large enough to nestle the little flower inside. He worked in silence and turned to Peggy’s next; once he had finished, he sat back on his feet to survey his work. 

“I should have come here more often,” Steve said, shaking his head. “At first it was too hard and then… I guess it was just easier to keep putting it off.”

“I used to come all the time, just to talk to her,” you said, then frowned. “I haven’t in a while. It’s just… work, and… and everything. It crowds in on you.”

Steve nodded. “She’d understand.” He wiped his hands together to clear away some dirt and then rubbed them on his jeans to get rid of the rest. Standing, he glanced up at the sky before extending a hand to you. “We’d better go,” Steve told you. “It’s supposed to rain today.”

He followed you to the car and helped you lay your things in the trunk, sliding into the passenger seat beside you just as the first few drops began to fall; you drove the rest of the way without speaking. It was a steady rain once you reached your block and you parked in the garage across the street and headed towards your apartment. When you reached the sidewalk you stopped and reached out to take his hand. Steve gave you a questioning look and you returned it with a small smile.

“Let’s go for a walk,” you told him. “We can act like tourists, pretend to get lost.”

Steve smiled. “I’d like that,” he said, and held your hand as you meandered through the cool rainy afternoon, not returning back to your apartment until you were both soaked through and dripping.

He spent the night, and after a long talk in the morning, he decided to stay for good.

Steve had been feeling it too -- a sort of tightness under his skin, a need to be out somewhere in the open, without skyscrapers towering around you and the constant rush of people and traffic in the streets. There was a little town, he explained, just a few hours’ drive away, up the coast where everything was small and quiet and good. There was a house up on a rocky hill with big open windows and a view of the ocean, a place where he could paint -- because Steve had always wanted to be an artist, involving himself in the business of advertising only to make a dollar because that’s what it felt like you were supposed to do in New York. But he had made his money, more than enough, and he was done with that now.

He wanted the peace and quiet, and he wanted you to go with him. There was a little store in the little town, he explained, an antique shop that did great business in the summers when the tourists came through and good business in the winter when the locals wanted a new lamp or a clock for their mantlepiece. The owner was retiring and would sell it all, the building and the business, in one fell swoop.

“It could be ours,” Steve said. “It could be our new start.”

It was hard to leave your friends behind, but you weren’t so far that you couldn’t come back for a visit, and they could come up to see you any time they wanted. Natasha was charmed by the little bed and breakfast and Clint took a liking to an old farm for sale on the outskirts of town; they explored every nook and cranny when they came up for the wedding, Steve in his good black suit and you in a soft flowing dress, at the little white chapel in the town center. They closed on the farm just a few weeks later; it would be their summer place, Natasha decided.

There was no need for a honeymoon; every day of your new life felt like one. You worked at your little shop and came home in the evenings to find Steve with flecks of paint in his hair and smudges on his face. You’d laugh and make dinner together, and spend your nights making love with the wide windows open to hear the rain or the crash of the ocean waves below.

Four months after you moved, you found yourself waiting those same tortuous fifteen minutes again. This time there were two little blue lines, not one. You’d had it in mind to name the child for Peggy and when you the doctor placed your little boy in your arms, you and Steve shared a laugh.

Peggy never did like her name. It would be Carter, then. Carter James, for Peggy and for Steve’s old friend Bucky, who had just returned from the war, a little quieter and a little jumpier, and missing an arm he had lost overseas. He took up residence in your guest room while he tried to figure out what to do with his life next, and you welcomed his presence.

It would be wonderful for CJ to have his Uncle James around as he grew up.

“Uncle James?” Steve had asked, nose wrinkled when Bucky decided that’s what he would be called.

“Well I’m not gonna be Uncle Bucky,” Bucky had retorted with a one-shoulder shrug. “Like that movie with the guy flippin’ pancakes with a shovel? I don’t think so.”

Steve had laughed and laughed, and Uncle James had stayed on until he found a job working as a gym teacher at the small elementary school in town and bought his own cozy little house nearby. He was still a regular feature at your home, sharing regular meals with your small family and teaching CJ to swear about as soon as he could talk.

One Christmas morning saw CJ receiving some plastic snowball forming contraption from his beloved uncle and all of you, CJ in his snowsuit, Steve in his pajamas and boots, Bucky and the woman he had been seeing in their winter clothes and you, several months pregnant and wrapped up in your warmest coat and gloves, piled out into the backyard to try out CJ’s new toy. You were laughing and throwing snow as CJ shrieked and giggled, and when you fired a well aimed snowball at a snow-laden tree branch above Steve’s head to drop its frozen quarry on his head, you could swear you heard Peggy laugh.


End file.
